Save the Cat!

Thanks to the #WritingCommunity on Twitter, I discovered Save the Cat! I have Googled to find good writing guides, endlessly searching for the right book for me, which is when I found Story Engineering. (More on that later.) It wasn't until an author I was following asked on Twitter which book people recommend for writing that I discovered Save the Cat!

I like the writing style in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. It's accessible, easy to understand, and as I was reading, I kept adjusting and adding to my own novel.

Save the Cat! breaks the novel down into three main parts and then those parts are again broken down into five, seven, and three parts respectively.

I don't want to go into it too much as I will never explain it as well as it's written in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. But I'd like to draw your attention to my main take-aways from the guide.

It's Not About What You Think It's About

If someone asked me what my book was about, it'd be about two human kids discovering aliens live on Earth. Or maybe it's about how destiny is a load of rubbish and we can all act and save the world. But that's not what the book is about.

Every book, no matter what the genre or the character or whatever happens, is about the character's personal journey. If they're in space, or in a battle field, or an office or a school, every character takes a personal and emotional journey. Maybe they're selfish and they learn to be selfless, maybe they're a coward and they learn to be brave. Whatever the character flaw, they will ultimately learn to be a better person at the end of the book, or fail trying.

My main character, as far as I was concerned, had no flaws. She's amazing: brave, funny, assertive. But when I thought about her, she's reckless. She doesn't think of others. She's adrenaline seeking, selfish. She has flaws! Hurray! This means I have a story. Now, my book isn't just about plot, the stuff that happens, it's about the inner journey my main character doesn't even know she needs to take. It has depth, theoretically. Whether or not I pull it off is another thing, but at least I have the shape of an idea.

Thank you Save the Cat!

The Midpoint Needs to be Big

One of the things I'm not very good at is being mean to my characters. We had a lovely story,

where the children discovered lots of lovely things, had a lot of fun, nice and gentle where nothing really happened until the end.

That has all changed. I've just written a scene where my characters are nearly eaten by a monster. That would have been unheard of in earlier drafts where they were kept safe in this wonderful alien world.

All this builds up towards the midpoint where something huge and different changes the game and instead of bumbling along trying to understand what's going on, the characters change and have a plan of attack.

Save the Cat! says that the midpoint is where the hero experiences a false victory or a false defeat. The stakes of the story are raised and the plot and the inner personal journey of the hero collide.

I didn't have a mid point for a long time. Nothing really happened around the middle and my characters just bumbled along in Act 2 until Act 3 started. Now, my main characters flaw makes her do something that is ultimately a victory but then leads, very quickly to a false defeat. She could have had everything she'd ever wanted if only she hadn't acted on her character flaw, and now she's lost everything.

I am not good at this. I already feel guilty for hurting my darlings. These are my characters, my babies, they must only have good times in my books but of course, that won't help my character develop and grow as a person. Fun times won't help my character develop, to realise her flaw and overcome it.

I am still working on the midpoint as I need some catalyst, some reason that she'd go against everything she's ever wanted. It needs to be a big enough draw that includes the false antagonist and the real antagonist. So, I'm working on the details of the midpoint but at least I know now that it exists and it is catastrophic.

One Last Thought

I would recommend everyone who wants to write, no matter how good you already are, reads Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. Even if you you're already amazing, even if you know what you're doing. Read it if you're just about to start writing for the first time or if you're like me and have a pile of unpublished works in progress.

Getting Organised

If you're following me on Twitter you may have seen that I'm using a bullet journal to keep myself

organised. It's not perfect, but I'm remembering to do a lot more things and it's leaving my mind clear to think about writing.

I do not have the best memory to say the least, so I'm glad the bullet journal is working well.

I have now started using it to schedule when I'm writing. I've broken the book down into scenes that I've planned using the beat sheet from Save the Cat Writes a Novel. I cannot tell you how brilliant Save the Cat is and how much I think everyone should use this beat sheet. I have the book and I've been watching the You Tube tutorials and I've learnt so much about storytelling. I'm using a lot of what I've learnt from all the different elements of storytelling in my plan and finding it useful to refer back to my plan when pantsing it doesn't work out.

So, because I have these scenes prepared I know roughly how long my book is going to be. I can plan out which scenes I'm going to write when.

Of course, this isn't going to be a hard and fast schedule with no wiggle room. Creativity doesn't turn on and off because I've planned it out in my bullet journal. But now, I've broken the writing process down into managable chunks. I know how much I need to write to achieve my goal for that day. I know now, without worrying about it, that I will finish my novel before my self-imposed deadline, with room to go over if I need it. s

It's also a realistic plan for writing. I'm probably not going to write during the day, or when my husband suggests TV for us to watch, so I've planned around that and allowed rest times and times for playing with the kids. And still, I should be right on schedule.

Fingers crossed, it actually works and I manage to stick to it. It all went according to plan yesterday, with 5000 words across two scenes added to the WIP.